


A Prisoner to all my father held so dear

by thecat_13145



Series: In the Living Years [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Royalty, French Revolution, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:56:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5604082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/pseuds/thecat_13145
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From Les Miserables Kink Meme Prompt meme, Grantaire is the lost Dauphin</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Prisoner to all my father held so dear

Sometimes he dreams of Before. Before the…

Before, when he had a different name, a name it’s dangerous to even think of. Before when he had a mother, a father, a sister, and even a brother. Before, when he didn’t know how much pain a body could bare, that every man has his breaking point and his were impressively low.

He hates those dreams, reaching for the bottle almost before he’s awake. It’s the only thing that the old bastard, Simon, taught him. Well, that and an impressive itinerary of curses which mean he can even shock Bahorel on occasions, when the wine is strong enough to make him forget caution.

His life, or what remains of it, he owed to Madame Simon, or possibly more accurately her fear of retribution if he died. Certainly she had cared enough to agree when Gillenormand and the others approached her and the Laundress, Madam Lune. Allowed herself to be persuaded that if the child died, either from one of Simon’s rages or was killed by the Revolutionaries, things might be very bad for her. Better for all concerned that the child should be removed from the Tuniles. Only it was too late by then.

He wonders what they would make of it, Herbert, Chaumette, that bastard Robespierre and the rest. Their wolfcub all grown up, a good san coulette, plotting the overthrow of his uncle. An attempt he knows is doomed to fail.

Even if, by some miracle they succeed in their aims, the people rise up to join them, nothing will change, not really. The rulers will always be corrupt and the people will always suffer for it. Worse than that, the Rulers will always manipulate the people, about the only thing he and Enjolras agree on without question.

Even their saviours.

Enjolras joined him, unexpectedly in August. It’s only later, that he’ll realise the significance of the date. The last attempt to save them all. Too later for his father by that point, possibly even if it had succeeded, but him, his mother, his sister and his aunts. To save them before…

He’d being too shock to ask Enjolras what he was doing here, and the other man seemed to take it that he was drunk enough not notice or to care.

Wine makes Enjolras talkative. It might be that Enjolras knows it and that’s why he avoids drinking, but it’s also possible that he just isn’t aware of it. 

He certainly is indiscreet, when Grantaire greets him as Apollo, for the first time showing genuine anger at that name. 

“That’s what SHE called him.” He said, scowling at the wine bottle. “She should have realised that Apollo is always alone, but no, she believed in him. Believed him when he told that he loved her. Like he loved any woman other than L'autrichienne.”

It’s not the worst thing, by any stretch of the imagination, he’s heard his mother called. He signed a confession saying much, much worse things, after the Hebert had brought it to the cell. Things that he hadn’t even understood at the time, though he recognised that they were wrong. But it is not nice and somehow it’s worse coming from Enjolras.

He took another drink before he dared ask. “Who?”

Enjolras turned towards him, his eyes blazing with a fire that scared Grantaire, different to the usual fire of revolution. “My father. Count,” He spat the word out “Axle Fersen” a wolf’s smile came over his face. “I settled him though. Him and that Austrian Bitch.”He glanced at Grantaire, giggling and he wasn’t sure that wasn’t the most disturbing thing about the whole situation. Enjolras should not giggle. It did not suit him, making him look like one of the mad med in the Hospital de la Incurables. 

“He never noticed me. Never cared. Never saw that I was in the room as they made their plans.” He giggled again. “Monsieur de Robespierre was very pleased with me.”

Grantaire didn’t doubt that he was. Robespierre was a brutal monster, but he could be a charming monster. Certainly he could charm the people with no difficulty and a child of maybe eight or nine, desperate for parental approval and affection would have being an easy and willing convert.

“very pleased indeed.” Enjolras had muttered, and promptly collapsed unconscious on the table. 

had occurred to him then how easy it would be to kill the other man now. to seek revenge for his mother, his father and even for old Master Simon, victims all of them of the madness of one man.

Certainly Gillenormand, Richelieu and probably even D’Artagnan and Clouet would have urged him to do so, for France’s sake as much as his own, to spare their land more bloodshed. But he couldn’t do so. 

Grantaire might have being broken, destroyed truthfully, by the revolutions and the reign of Terror, but at least he knew that. Had realised this and had even made a sort of peace with it.

Enjolras was still being slowly destroyed by it.

Instead, he had carefully uplifted and helped the young revolutionary back to his rooms, leaving him in his bed on his side. He had being about to leave, when something made him turn back and kiss the other man on the cheek and whisper in his ear “Grâce pour maman”

He doubted Enjolras would have understood the significance, even if he had being awake. The pleas of the Dauphin to the mob to spare his mother had being widely reported in the royalist press, but he doubted Enjolras would have read them or that they would have made much impact on him if he had.

Grâce pour maman. Grace for them all.

He didn’t blame Madame SImon for passing all responsibility for the plan off on to her husband. Safer for her, passing all the responsibility of a dead man. Revolutionaries would not have dealt lightly, even with a woman whose only motivation was pity for an orphaned child, and his Uncle and Cousin would not be any more pleased to discover he was alive.

He laughed softly. No chance of that. 

The story of the pope’s visit and mark was just that, a story told by those who felt their religion was under threat and that only a Bourbon could save it. There was no mark, no scar, no tattoo of any description on his waist, thigh or anywhere else to identify him as a prince.

As for the faint chance of anyone recognising him…Simon’s hobnail boot had crushed his nose and scarred his face. Smallpox, contacted in the weeks following his escape had completed the removal of any resemblance to the darling of France, the Prince of the Bourbons, his mother’s cour.

And while his refusal to even seek a meeting with his sister baffled the men who had rescued him, they accepted it. How could they not, when they had seen and cared for the tiny, malnourished creature, who cringed away from them all and had to be stopped from singing revolutionary songs at inappropriate moments (not that there had being many appropriate moments, among royalists). 

Well, accept was the wrong word. They tolerated it, certainly much better than Gillenormand tolerated Marius’s rejection of his family and obsession with Napoleon. 

But they would never stop hoping that one day he would rise to the throne. Remove his uncle and restore their world to rights.  
He suspect that Les Amis De L’ABC had a spy in their midst. Nothing definite, but Clouet had found him far too easily the last time she had wanted him. D’Artagnan too was too well informed about Les Amis activities for Grantaire’s taste.

He had initially suspected Marius, for no other reason than Monsieur Gillenormand relationship with the lad (and it was hard to believe that anyone could be that much of a fool), but closer examination had eliminated Marius. The lad was not as foolish as he appeared, rather much younger in soul than any of them.

Once or twice, he had seen Jehan leaning back, blending into the background so skillfully that Enjolras and the others forgot he was here. He wondered if… but there was no proof that Jehan’s desire to become part of the furniture came from anything less than Grantaire’s own motives. That the furniture was less likely to attract man’s ire than a small child, whatever his status or beliefs.

He hadn’t said anything to Enjolras or the others. After all, he had no proof and what was he? He was Grantaire, the drunken cynic of les Amis de L’ABC. An orphan with a generous guardian, an art student. The man who knew all the best places to go in Paris. A man in love with the one man in Paris whose primary reaction to discovering who he had being would be disgust.

No, he was Grantaire. Louis Charles, Duke of Normandy; Dauphin of France; Louis XVIII died a long time ago. It’s better for everyone if he stays dead

**Author's Note:**

> Full Prompt "When King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed during the revolution, they left two children. A daughter, Marie-Therese, who was sold back to her mothers family after the Revolution and a son, the Dauphin Louis Charles who supposedly died of illness while imprisoned. After the revolution ended, there were many rumors that the Dauphin survived and even a few people stepped forward to claim the title but all were proven false. It would come as a shock to all if it became known that a skeptical drunk member of the Les Amis called Grantaire was really the missing Dauphin, taken from his prison at the age of 10 and hidden away from the Revolutionaries who killed his parents.
> 
> Bonus bits of historical background that could be included. Marie Antoinette was convicted on the charge of molesting her son, charges which came about after the National Guard got the 10 year old Dauphin drunk and beat him until he said what they wanted him to say. This could explain Grantaires skeptical nature and dependence on alcohol. He lived through hell and was forcibly addicted to alcohol as a child. 
> 
> Also, for a bonus, Marie Antoinette historically was rumored to have an affair with a Swedish Diplomat Count Axle Fersen, who was known to keep several French mistresses and was described as tall, blond haired and looked almost like a god. Remind you of anyone? It's fairly easy to think he could have a bastard son called Enjolras who hates the autocracy for what happened to his mother. 
> 
> Extra, extra bonus. Marius is the one who figures it all out, with a little help from his Grandfather who was a royalist who lived through the revolution and may have been one of the people who helped to free the Dauphin."
> 
> Author’s Notes: Louis Charles, The Lost Dauphin died on or around 8th June 1795 in Tunile Prison in Paris. His identity was confirmed in 2000 by DNA analysis on a preserved heart. 
> 
> However, there were rumours for many years that he had being spirited away by Royalists. 
> 
> Master Simone was a shoemaker, who along with his wife was given custody of the Dauphin in July 1793. Accounts vary, but it seems clear that Simone was at least physically abusive towards the child. Royalist accounts suggest the possibility of sexual abuse, but this is unconfirmed. Simone certainly was a drinker and Royalist accounts claim that he encouraged the young Dauphin to drink and sing revolutionary songs (including what is now the French National Anthem).
> 
> Madame Simone, after the Restoration, claimed that the child was spirited away by royalists. Her account was widely believed, especially as it matched a fictional account, “The Cemetery of the Madeline” by Regnault-Warin, that the child was smuggled out in a laundry basket and a poor child (possibly deaf and mute) substituted in his place. Among other things mentioned in the account was that the Dauphin had visited the Pope and received a mark or a tattoo to enable him to be identified as the rightful king of France. Madame Simone’s account is now viewed as wistful thinking, but it was widely believed at the time. 
> 
> Pierre Gaspard Chaumette was Presidency of the Commune at the time of the executions of the Royal Family. He, along with Jacques Hébert (a Radical journalist) and Maximilien Robespierre were responsible for getting the Dauphin to sign a piece of paper accusing his mother of sexually abusing him. The accusations are generally viewed as false and the signature as the result of the abuse the child had received up until then. 
> 
> There were many plots and abortive plots to rescue the Royal family, but the particular one I was thinking of was the 1792 plot by Count Axel to help the family escape by coach to Varennes, which was the one which probably came nearest to succeeding. 
> 
> The Dauphin’s pleading during the Royal family’s removal from Versailles to Paris, “Grâce pour maman”, was widely reported. 
> 
> Clouet is a real person, mentioned in the records as the daughter of the Laundress who visited the Temple Prison (where the family was originally held) and played with the Dauphin.
> 
> Anyone wanting more, I recommend the The lost King of France by Deborah Cadbury.


End file.
